Til Death Do Us Part

23

“It’s as you suspected. Your husband and this woman have met a few times over the last couple of weeks. Usually late in the evening. It seems to be for romantic dates.”

His words are a slicing weapon as photographs fall out onto my lap, and I sit staring at the haphazard pile, unable to pick them up as I’m frozen in posture. Eyes glued to the assault before me.

Pictures of Jyeon walking hand in hand, hugging, cuddling up, and smiling at this b***h. All manner of locations but making it very clear she’s not just a business acquaintance. I start trembling and finally pick them up one by one, blankly staring at each before carefully placing it back on my lap in a neat pile, and yet I can barely breathe. My outward calmness doesn’t match my inner chaos, and tears prick my eyes as each one gets more challenging to keep still from my vibrating fingers.

I stop at a picture of them kissing in his car, and it hurts like a gunshot to my chest. Taken from a distance, but it’s unmistakeably him. His hands are in her hair as they passionately make out, and I close my eyes and lay it down to blot them out. Trying hard to keep a handle on my body and emotions, and this is so much harder than I thought it would be.

“I’m sorry. I know this must be very hard for you, but in divorce cases, a******y will work in your favor.” His words are like lead to me, dropping heavily onto my brain and weighing me down.

“This is the additional information you wanted. Her movements, schedules, home address, etc. She has an apartment not far from here. I came from there before meeting you.”

I nod numbly, unable to take it in, and force all my efforts into not breaking down in front of this stranger. My heart is broken into a million pieces, and I don’t know how to react when it’s so plainly in my face. I can’t deny it or make excuses, and my gut was right from god knows when. Deep down, I knew, and I hate that I knew.

“If you want to confront your husband, he’s there now.”

His added afterthought makes the breath hitch in my throat, and I turn and blink at him.

“What?” It’s a raspy, hoarse question, borne of disbelief and desperation. Shocked and not sure I heard him clearly.

“He arrived early this morning, and they were still there when I left a few moments ago.”

My teeth and even my lips chatter and tremble in response. My whole body violently shakes as I’m blinded by the moisture of my eyes welling up, and I crunch the envelope in my fist and yank the car door open. Instinct is taking over as I hear him clearly inside my head telling me he would be at the office today. Right to my face.

“The address?” I grit through clenched teeth, barely staying upright as he picks up a secondary envelope and holds it out to me. I tear it open, dropping all the pictures from my lap as I slide out, and he hurries to collect them and puts them back into their original envelope.

I look down and scan the address on the first piece of paper and know where it is from here. I know my surroundings like the back of my hand as we grew up near here. It's literally one street away. One road from where we used to run together in the good old days of early marriage, near where I am almost daily. It makes the anger bubble up from the fiery pits of hell within me, and I throw everything back into his car.

“Keep it all, and I’ll call you tomorrow. I’ll need it all.” My voice sounds alien to me. Some internal purpose takes over and thought, and logic ceases to exist. Shaking, raspy, like I’m a possessed crazy woman and I haul my ass away from his car and move with deadly intent.

The emotions and feelings I subdued and pushed down since I was fifteen years old, to dedicate my life to helping Jyeon rise, come at me like a fireball of chaos. It was never part of the plan to confront them. I just wanted to know so I could figure out what to do next. Yet now it’s right here, so close, and I know what he’s been doing as fact. I can’t control it anymore.

I gave up so much for him. I gave up my entire heart and soul for him. I sacrificed my sanity and my baby, hopes, and dreams. Everything for the Park family and him. How could he do this to me and make me a pathetic laughing stock? That I’m so worthless to him that he doesn’t care about wounding me this deeply.

I break into a run and get into her street in super-fast time like a woman possessed and start searching out the door numbers of every apartment and complex here. Finally, I find a sign pointing downwards into an alley to a lower floor villa with a shaded front door, and I stop in my tracks as I spy Jyeon’s sports car parked in the street further ahead. It’s the last push of momentum I need.

My soul dying a horrible gruesome death as I’m blinded by tears that have been bound inside since my teens. I pace forward, skip down the few steps to ground level and bang on the door like a maniac. Hurting my fist and wrist with the effort I put into it.

It’s a solid wooden door with no window, no spy hole, and only a low slot letterbox for mail. Whoever is in there has to answer to see who it is, and my heart skips a beat as I hear footsteps coming behind it. Vibrating all over, cold with fear, breathless, and yet I can’t back down and run away from this.

There’s a moment of a lock being flicked within, rattling noises, and then its yanked open widely, and I’m faced with a smiling and pleasant Claire White. Dressed in a bathrobe and bare feet and it’s not hard to guess why.

She freezes at seeing me, and her expression completely drops. Her jaw opens in a gawping motion as she gasps loudly in horror. My eyes are pulled past her as Jyeon walks into the long corridor, wearing only his jeans and nothing else. An expanse of tanned, toned torso and muscle on show. He stops and looks up expectantly, also smiling, as though they were both expecting someone else, maybe a takeout delivery. His eyes meet mine, and he too loses that happy expression as shock registers and his skin loses all color.

We three stand for a second as we take one another in, then I choke on my saliva. My body sagging, and I have to grab the door frame to stop myself from collapsing. A horrible gasping noise as I struggle to speak and breathe at the same time and a sob escapes me. Seeing them this way, knowing he’s been sleeping with her all this time. It’s unbearable.

“How could you?” My heart twists in my chest as the girl moves out of the way, and Jyeon walks towards me at speed. It’s forced out as the tears start to fall, and I hate myself for breaking down and crying in front of this man after all these years.

He doesn’t know what to say, and I’m grabbed by a sudden sense of urgency that springs out of nowhere. A fury finding feet as the inner me tries to jump up and protect me from this awful gruesome reality. I turn and haul Claire towards me by grabbing a chunk of her towel robe before slapping her hard across the face so that it stings my palm and sends her flying sideways. Only I’m holding her by the collar, and I’m yanked with her and fall on top of her as I burst into tears, fuelled by pain, and start to hit her in sheer reaction.

It turns into an immediate b***h fight. Wrestling, hair pulling, scratching, and slapping, as she turns on me too and gives as good as she gets. I unleash all my fury and years of repressed emotions. My hatred for Jyeon is poured out onto the wrong person, but she was closest, and I aim to wound them both. I don’t even know why or where this came from, as it’s not who I have ever been.

“Sohla, stop it. Sohla!!! Please.” Jyeon hauls me up from behind, his arms around me as he catches me by the wrists and tries to cage my crazy. He holds me tight, battling for control, and pulls me back away from her as I kick out my legs to keep trying to m**m her.

I turn in his arms when I can no longer cause her damage and start aiming my fury at him instead. Using my fists on his chest and shoulders while every single brick and mortar piece of my emotional barrier wall breaks down, and I’m sobbing through my yells of 'How could you?'. I want to hurt him for every pain and scar he has ever caused me. My limbs are aching and heavy from the sheer force.

“I hate you. I hate you….. How could you? I hate you. I…. hate …. you….” It’s a blubbering chaotic, and hopeless wail of a woman crumbling into despair. Jyeon tries to hold onto me, tries to pull me close and hug me in, but I wriggle and squirm and fight until I break loose and manage to shove him with force away from me. Falling out the door, tripping backward, I splay across the ground on my back and butt. My body scrapes along the concrete floor outside with my impact, and I cut up my palms, leg, and elbow and yelp in fright.

“Sohla.” Jyeon reaches for me; his expression is unreadable. It’s like he’s in a daze or shocked, and yet there’s sadness in his eyes, and I crawl away to get out of his reach. Unable to bear him anymore. To have his touch, his face, his voice. He’s destroyed everything. He’s torn the last ounce of security from my world.

“Don’t touch me. Don’t ever touch me.” I’m shaking all over and manage to pull myself to my feet as blood cascades down my arm and lower leg. Grazed up, bruised, and I back away, unable to think clearly.

“Sohla, you’re hurt. Please just come with me. We’ll go somewhere and talk. Let me fix you up. Please, let’s go somewhere, the two of us.” His voice is trembling too, as though he doesn’t know how to navigate this, and he’s not the usually confident cold, and calm Jyeon. A pale shadow of a boy I once loved, but no longer do his words, or his tone melt my heart.

“Fix me?” I blurt out through fat tears and laugh maniacally. “How can you do that? How can you fix this?” I trip again, clumsy in my uncoordinated movements, and fall over a step. Jyeon lurches forward instinctively for me, and I slap his hand away mid-air despite it hurting to come down on my already cut knee. I curl up and hug my leg for a moment to wince at the pain and catch sight of Claire picking herself up in her hallway and tying her robe tighter. Jyeon seems oblivious to her presence. Or the fact she too is on the floor with apparent wounds.

“This isn’t how I wanted you to find out.” His tone is pleading, he even might sound regretful, but it’s just another stab to my heart, another wound to the never-ending list. This toxic thing between us that’s lasted decades.

I get up on shaking legs and pull myself together, grabbing onto the wall and rails to give myself purchase. The shock of it numbing me out and the pain of my body pulling my attention away from how unbearable this is. I stare at him while the tears stream down my face and drip onto my now sodden t-shirt, and then at her, with a sarcastic smile, I shake my head.

“You finally found a way, huh. To punish me for Tia.” It falls out of my mouth thoughtlessly, my inner voice speaking out, and his head shoots up to look at me with a frown.

“Who’s Tia?” He asks impulsively, and I close my eyes at him, saying her name. Hating how it sounds on his lips. A name I never told him, never uttered to a single soul. He never knew about it because I’ve never dared to say it out loud since the moment I let her leave my body. He said we didn’t name her, but he didn’t know.

“No one. Nothing. Forget it. I’m leaving.” It’s a garbled jumble of words, and I turn and start walking away on Bambi legs. Slow and unstable. Trying to reel myself back in and pull my head together, but his warm hand on my wrist stops me in my tracks as he catches me and hauls me back.

“Don’t go. Let me take you. I'll drive us somewhere. We need to talk. I can’t let you go alone like this.” He reaches out with his other hand and tries to wipe the tears from my cheek that are probably half the reason he’s in shock because I don’t cry, ever.

I react violently. Slapping his hand away, tugging myself free, and shove him hard in the abdomen, so he stumbles backward and has to grab the railing to save himself. I don’t wait for another invasive touch and just run. Heading in the direction I came from and put my head down to put my all into it. Needing to be away from him and her. Needing to be alone to process this and stop the mental breakdown I seem to be in the process of having. It’s so big I feel like I might die.

“Sohla, wait.”

His anxious voice follows me, and yet I don’t stop. I run harder and faster until I feel like my limbs might snap and lungs are fit to bursting. I don’t know where I find the strength or energy when every part of me is aching like a toothache, and I’m sapped of life.

“Sohla!!!” he sounds desperate, but it’s too late. I don’t want to see him anymore. I don’t want to feel this way anymore. I curse the day I was born into this family and the day my mother told me he would be my future.

“Jyeon… Jyeon, come back. Jyeon!!” Claire’s voice follows from further back, and I blot it out. Blot them both out and run like my life depends on it.